Proclaiming God's Mercy through Deed, Word and Prayer

Foundational

NOTE Thanks to the encouragement of my wife Marie and our very good friend Julie, I am now committed to making this Divine Mercy Network blog an active ministry to reach as many people as our Lord wills. Since Marie and Julie’s encouragement to do this came as the result of something I recently posted on Facebook (10/2/2017), I begin this renewed effort by re-publishing those same words … (Since I am re-publishing my FB post, I also take the liberty to make a few corrections and comments on the original. Any such correction or comment will be underlined)

As a formerly active Marine (because there is no such thing as an “ex-Marine”) and a struggling Catholic Christian, I feel it necessary to comment on a few things regarding Las Vegas and our nation and culture as a whole.

First, the totally idiotic Tweet about the NRA and silencers by Hillary “Jezebel” Clinton must be addressed (read “The Paradigm” by Jonathan Cahn, 2017 to explain the “Jezebel” reference)

A “silencer” would have made NO difference in this case in Las Vegas. The reason authorities were able to actually figure out exactly where this possessed man was firing from was not the sound of the weapons, it was the smoke detectors that went off in his room due to the smoke generated from his weapons. I probably shouldn’t say “NO difference” about a “silencer” (which is actually a “suppressor”) but “very little” difference. My point is that it wasn’t the sound of the shots that gave away the position of the shooter. “Suppressors” do not “silence” a rifle. They lessen the sound but definitely do not silence them as often depicted in television and in movies. They also do not lend themselves to efficient automatic fire for very long.

Second, the “answer” to this has nothing to do with the democrat fueled issue of “gun control.” If you want to see the effectiveness of gun-control in the U.S., then look to the cities with the most gun-control; peaceful places like Chicago, IL, which has some of the most stringent gun-control laws on the books! Of course, I am being sarcastic since Chicago has more citizen on citizen (not Cop) gun violence than perhaps any other city – in spite of those laws.

No. This is a spiritual problem for the United States, which has allowed the legal slaughter of over 60,000,000 innocent unborn children since 1973 and then scratches its collective head every time this kind of apparently senseless violence happens.

We have kicked God out of our public schools and out of the public square and there are consequences to this nations official rejection of Sacred Scripture and of our Judeo-Christian roots. And historical facts back this up … Consider the fact that prior to the mid-1960’s this kind of thing was unknown in the United States!

So what changed?? Consider the following:

June 25, 1962, is when the Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale that a prayer approved by the New York Board of Regents for use in schools violated the First Amendment because it represented the establishment of religion. That one decision marked the end of all prayer and public recognition of God in our grade schools, high schools, and colleges! Prior to this evil decision, prayer was a regular part of our social public fabric.

It also marked the end of any teacher in any class being able to tell any student that there is any behavior that is objectively good or objectively evil. Why? Because it is literally impossible to teach morality and ethics since both are predicated on the belief in GOD … Specifically, the God revealed in the Bible!

Then in 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that it was unconstitutional for the government to prohibit married couples from using artificial birth control (yeah, it used to be illegal.) Playing God in the marriage bed was officially condemned in the Didache in the first century A.D. And in the so-called “Old” Testament we read: ““Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you…” Jeremiah 1:5

One year later in 1966 America witnessed the first “mass shooting” at the University of Dallas.

And then in 1973, the Court legalized abortion … And just 44 years later, 60,000,000 legal abortions aren’t enough. Now we have the growing legalization of euthanasia at the other end of God’s greatest gift – LIFE.

Our own history supports this line of reasoning … Since these few decisions were made and forced upon America by the courts, this nation has become terribly divided and incredibly and unpredictably violent. Las Vegas was just one more example of what is now a regular story in the news … each one seemingly getting worse.

Since those few decisions and others like them – everything has gotten progressively and consistently worse. But don’t take my word for it. See Dr. William Bennett’s “Index of Leading Cultural Indicators” … one among other studies showing the same connections to those decisions and to that time period. Here are some old numbers from 1993:

Since the mid-1960’s in America:
– Violent crime has increased by 500 percent.
– Illegitimate births have increased 400 percent.
– Divorces have increased 400 percent (now a record number of people deciding to never marry)
– Children living in single-parent homes have increased 300 percent.
– Child abuse has increased 340 percent since 1976.
– Teenage suicide has increased 200 percent.
– S.A.T. scores have dropped almost 80 points, despite huge increases in support for education. See http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/…/the-index-of-leading-cult…/ for more details …

Our courts and leftist leaders deny HIs existence and His authority. Our courts and leftist leaders (like the Clintons and Obama) reject His commands to honor and protect innocent life (especially the unborn … and even the partially born) and now they reject His teaching on the very definition of marriage itself, which is only possible between one man and one woman.

And now October, the month of All Saints Day, is in honor of America’s LGBT “heroes?”

Our problems go to the rejection of what God has revealed in both the Old and New Testaments. Yet in His Mercy God has already provided the answer and the way out of the disaster of present-day America. Among many, many choices from both Old and New …

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14.

And if not?

“For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12.

In conclusion, the historical, factual figure known as Jesus of Nazareth is either on or the other of three “L’s” … Either Jesus was the greatest Liar ever, the biggest Lunic ever or He is Who He said He is, The Lord. And if He is Lord then He is also a true Gentlemen.

In other words, if you (we) tell Him to “get the hell out of my house” then He will. And if His Presence as Lord happened to have been protecting us from the kinds of forces St. Paul referenced in the above quote from his letter to the Ephesians … well … it’s not His fault for happens next.

Until Americans reject political correctness, judicial tyranny and politicians who do not represent them, this will all continue and will get worse. The United States needs a Judeo-Christian based Spiritual Revival.

The Father Speaks to His Children

Divine Mercy Network – Mercy Radio is pleased to provide this post, dedicated to promoting a beautiful revelation by God The Father to Mother Eugenia Elisabetta Ravasio, (4 September 1907 – 10 August 1990) an Italian nun, visionary and mystic, from theRoman Catholic Church.

Mother Eugenia reported that on July 1, 1932 God The Father assumed the appearance of a man, sat next to her, removed his crown and dictated a message for all humanity. After ten years of intense scrutiny the local bishop approved the message … This page provides access to the full book “The Father Speaks to His Children” in both text and my original audio production.

I discovered this message around 2006-2007 “by chance” when I was visiting Old St. Mary’s Detroit, one of my all-time favorite Catholic Churches in the world (look for the free Old St. Mary’s Mobile App for Apple and Android).

This message came to me during a particularly dark and difficult time in my life (including struggles with faith) and played a significant positive role. Not long after reading the messages I was at a local park with my wife and several young children. As we were leaving the park I heard the back right door of my car slam shut (I was already in the drivers seat) … I then heard a terrible scream as the door was quickly reopened, only to find out that my oldest son (then just five years old) had all four of his little fingers in the door when it was shut!

He was outside the car and had put his fingers in the front part of the back door when it was slammed shut. I was convinced that all four fingers would either be cut off or at the very least severely mangled. I will never forget the look of absolute horror and pain in his innocent little eyes. It’s such a clear vision for me even now that I find my eyes welling up as I write this almost nine years later!

Again, I discovered this message from God The Father in the midst of a very dark time for me in the faith, which I would liken to a drowning man just about to go under for the last time when he is suddenly given a life raft. It had only been a few weeks since I first read the entire booklet and at the time of this incident I was reading it again.

So after jumping out of my seat, practically flying around the car and seeing his little eyes full of pain and terror, my first instinct was to cup his little hand in both of mine because I didn’t want him to see either his missing or terribly mangled fingers – and I didn’t want to look either! Without even the slightest pause – and I can see this as clear as day right now – I knelt down in front of him, his hand in both of mine and by the Grace of Mercy of God Himself, the intercession (I’m sure) of our dear Mother Mary, my very prayerful and always faithful wife Marie and perhaps legions of Angels and Saints, I received the gift to immediately begin praying out-loud to God The Father, in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, by the Power of His Precious Blood – in a way that I have never prayed before!

I remember becoming aware that I was no longer looking at my son but looking up to Heaven. I can’t really recall exactly what I was saying but along with the awareness that I was looking up to Heaven I also became conscious of the fact that in some strange way it wasn’t me, or perhaps “just” me that was praying; a humbling realization to say the least. After that experience I had a new understanding of what St. Paul meant in Romans 8:26-27:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, becausethe Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

That consciousness came at the very moment I realized that this prayer was literally inundated with TRUST. There was basically no room for any other outcome! God was somehow revealing to me the kind of faith that really does move mountains and walks on water – because my little son Aidan was no longer crying and when I opened my hands all of his four little fingers were still there! They were not mangled. They were not bleeding. They were not even bruised and my wife Marie and I will never forget what God did for us and our son on that day!

It was after this miraculous experience that I decided to commission my very talented and blessed Mother-In-Law, Anne Simoneau, to produce an original icon based on Mother Eugenia’s description of God The Father. I also made the decision to record the entire booklet as an audio file and to do whatever else I could to tell anyone who would listen about the Love and Mercy of God The Father! But my efforts didn’t last very long. Just to show you how weak and deficient I really am, I’ll admit that by August of 2010, after a series of further disappointments with the Church and myself, I lost my initial fervor and basically gave up the efforts I was making to evangelize with this and other messages. Now, for the first time in about five years, I’m back at it again – thanks in no small part to Charlie Johnston and his blog, Next Right Step.

This revelation from God The Father is powerful and perfectly suited for today, especially as the Church and world face the scourge of an all-encompassing system that specifically denies the Fatherhood of God. For God to be a Father, he needs a Son and Islam specifically states that “God has no son.” I hope you will read this revelation and listen to the audio recording as well … so that your faith and devotion will be deepened and strengthened. From there I hope you will take whatever steps you can to spread this message to others.

To access the text, simply click the link below. To listen to the audio online, click the image of God The Father on this page (this will open a new tab in your browser and begin playing the audio immediately.) You can also download the MP3 audio file by “right-clicking” the image and choosing “Save Link As.”

In closing, if you read and / or listen to this revelation you will read/hear these words which God The Father desires all believers to pray and live by … I exhort you to commit this to memory!

We have a Father Who is infinitely good, infinitely rich and greatly merciful. He thinks about us and is close to us. He looks after us and supports us. He will give us everything we need if we ask Him. All His riches are ours. We will have everything we need.

This is especially interesting since it goes back to 1999 … Look at what has happened since then and what is happening in both France and Italy.

ARCHBISHOP BERNARDINI (At Synod of European Bishops) WARNS OF POTENTIAL FOR MUSLIM INVASION OF EUROPE!

VATICAN CITY, OCT 14, 1999 (ZENIT).- During his words in the Synod hall, Italian Franciscan Archbishop Giuseppe Bernardini of Smyrna, Turkey, who has lived in the Islamic world for 42 years, censured Muslims for their lack of reciprocity toward Christians’ efforts of dialogue. The Vatican Press Office published the text of his address yesterday, which explicitly denounces the Muslims’ irrational hostility toward Catholics.

Approved Catholic Prophecy speaks of such an invasion for sometime in the future.

Catholic prophecy speaks of a future invasion of the heart of Christendom (Western Europe) both by Muslim and Russian armies. Right now (under current conditions) the only credible threat the Russians pose to anyone (beside military lightweights such as Chechnya) is a nuclear threat (My Note: Not any more! RE: Russia’s military activity in Ukraine and now Syria). According to Catholic prophecy from many approved Catholic prophets (Canonized Saints, Blessed and Venerable), the following scenario is in store for some time in the future.

[As you may guess, Desmond does not think it is the far distant future.] By the way, my European contacts, several of whom work in/with several European intelligence communities, confirm that several nations are in deep trouble as far as internal integrity – i.e., it would not take a great deal to kick them over the edge into civil disorder. Two of the most prominent on that list are; 1st – France, 2nd – Italy. (My Note – see stories at the two links for France ad Italy at top of this post for examples of this present reality)That would/should surprise no one who reads much on Europe.

1. Sometime in the future France and Italy go into civil war at almost the same time – France will probably be first. “When everyone believes that peace is assured, when everyone least expects it, …Revolution will break out in Italy almost at the same time as in France:” [Ecstatic of Tours, Trial, Tribulation and Triumph (TTT) p. 360.]

This happens after an economic collapse that is quite general throughout Europe (My personal assessment is that this will be more or less worldwide). We also have an Italian, Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, prophesying about the same revolution in France (By the way, these prophecies are not speaking about the ‘French Revolution’, which was long over when these prophecies were made in the 19th century);

“France shall fall into a frightful anarchy. The French shall have a desperate civil war during the course of which even old men will take up arms.” (Page 363, TTT)

Another approved prophet, Fr. Nectou (a Jesuit Provincial in France) prophesied about a future civil war in France. He was not prophesying the late 18th century ‘French Revolution’, because he speaks of the total destruction of Paris, which has not yet happened, and he speaks of it being a general condition “not confined to France”.

Fr. Netou prophesied:

“During this Revolution, which will very likely be general and not confined to France, Paris will be destroyed…” Fr. Nectou goes on to describe what many of us call the “Age of Peace” as following this time of Revolution.

“Justice will reign throughout the whole world, and the counterrevolution will be accomplished.” (TTT, p. 351) [The meaning of the term “counterrevolution” is explained in this section of TTT.]

2. There are numerous other approved Catholic prophets quoted in TTT describing the same thing. This entire scenario will take civil authorities by surprise, certainly as to the speed with which things develop. The Vatican will be one of the few authorities that will not be surprised. This will be largely due to the fact that there are a number of orthodox men in the Vatican who are very knowledgeable about Catholic Church approved prophecies. (My Note: See Mercy Radio for more approved Catholic prophecies).

3. The civil war in both France and Italy will take on a specifically anti-Catholic animus. This civil war in France will develop basically into a general war between Catholics (and a few allies) and the anti-Christian forces (particularly in France) which have been running those countries for centuries. That ruling pattern began with the French Revolution in France. It began/culminated with Garibaldi in Italy.

4. The Catholics will be on the verge of being wiped out in France, when, a great military Catholic leader will come to the fore in France. (The prophecies lead me to believe that by this point, the Catholics and Protestants are fighting on the same [Christian] side against anti-Christian forces.)

5. ABOUT THE SAME TIME, A RUSSIAN ARMY WITH SOME “PRUSSIAN” (spell that East German) COUNTERPARTS WILL INVADE FRANCE AND SURROUNDING COUNTRIES. The Russians will invade out of desperation. It will match their historic pattern. Whenever the Russians have gotten hungry or desperate, historically, they have driven South into the Ukrainian Steps, or East into Poland in order to get what they need. This is a six hundred year old pattern. In this prophesied case, they opt to march West, and do not stop at Poland. (My Note: As you know Russia has already entered Syria)

[Not all of this is spelled out in the prophecies – but much of it is.]

Sr. Elena Aiello made the following prophecy in 1959. She was the founder of the order of the “Calabrians”, an Italian order of nuns.

“Russia will march upon all the major nations of Europe.” (TTT p. 392)

Speaking of the same time and events, Fr. Nectou prophesied,

“In a second battle at Frankfurt, the Prussians lost again and retreated as far as Siegburg, where they were joined with a Russian army. The Russians made common cause with the Prussians.” (That most probably means troops from former East Germany) (TTT, p. 347)

THERE ARE DOZENS OF SUCH PROHECIES TO BE FOUND IN TTT. I HAVE GIVEN YOU A FEW SNIPPETS FROM THEM HERE. IN ORDER THAT YOU MAY APPRECIATE JUST HOW MANY APPROVED CATHOLIC PROPHETS HAVE PREDICTED SUCH AN EVENT, READ IN PARTICULAR, CHAPTER 8 OF TTT.

I am filling in the blanks (between the approved prophecies) from 3 sources,

a. My knowledge of history and understanding that it tends to repeat itself,

b. Personal contacts from my younger years, which I have kept alive for the last two decades both on the Hill, and in Europe (both Eastern and Western).

c. Piecing together all of the ‘Intel’ which gets published in many intelligence journals (e.g. British Intelligence Digest). Many things, which would mean nothing to some others, mean much more to someone who has both a Catholic Prophecy roadmap, and contacts in various countries to verify certain items of information, which one reads from time to time.

6. The Russian/Prussian forces are only able to attempt such an invasion due to the fact that what we know as NATO no longer credibly exists due to almost continent-wide general and civil wars which rack Europe for over a year.

Everything is chaos at this point in Europe. Oil pipelines and major refineries and storage depots are gone (if you got em’ and I don’t, I’m going to lose, cause then you will have tanks and planes with fuel, and I won’t). So both sides destroy each other’s petroleum resources and means of storage and distribution. Hence all the Western European oil supply routes are gone by this time.

7. The U.S. has gone into a full-blown civil crisis of its own – thus taking it out of its position to impose “order” in Europe. Russia now has a free “board” to play on in Western Europe. (My Note: Violent and chaotic protests continue to increase across U.S. college campuses, horrendously violent crime and racial tension has dramatically increased across major U.S. cities over the last few years while financial experts across the spectrum warn our entire financial system could soon experience a total collapse. Many sources can be cited. like this story and this one quoting Donald Trump from 2012 when were approaching 16 Trillion in debt … now almost 18 Trillion!)

8. Eventually, at one point through direct Divine intervention, the forces of the French Military leader utterly devastate the Russian/Prussian forces. The decisive battle will take place in Westphalia. Come to my house I’ll show you on a map exactly where the final battle will take place in “the Birch Tree Country”. (Interesting coincidence of name, huh?) That final battle will take place in the hill country East of Paderborn.

9.Late in this scenario (not necessarily in a planned or coordinated manner) the Moslems will attack up through the Balkans. I wrote all of this out in TTT prior to the U.S. handing Kosovo over to fundamentalist Muslim forces on a silver platter. (If you don’t know, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army is radically militant fundamentalist Moslem.)

10. I have in the last years communicated with several U.S. Intelligence community folks who wanted to know where I was getting my ‘intel’. They refused to believe that it was from Catholic prophecy. That’s no exaggeration.

11. You can read many more details in TTT.

12. None of the members of my old Ukrainian parish laugh at my prognostications any more, after the advance call of the fall of the Soviet Union – six years in advance – based upon the same prophecies presented here.

I’ve been delaying publishing this new Divine Mercy Network Blog because I know the monumental task in front of me and have been struggling with what to post “first” … Well, after reading this article I immediately knew it would serve as good as anything else I might find or write myself. And besides that, I found it indirectly through Charlie Johnston’s blog Next Right Step, which has become for me and many others a great source of information and inspiration.

This new blog you are on now is part of the resurrection and remolding of an idea that came to me in prayer almost ten years ago called The Divine Mercy Network, a Christ centered network of like-minded people dedicated to proclaiming God’s Mercy through Deed, Word and Prayer.

This new effort is one more response to the truths being expressed in the article below by Rod Dreher … which is just scraping the surface.

For much more information on the foundation of The Divine Mercy Network, please see our companion site Mercy Radio.

Over the past decade, especially in the struggle over same-sex marriage, some of my friends and allies among social and religious conservatives have called me a defeatist for my culture-war pessimism. I believe that pessimism today is simply realism, and that it is better for us to retreat strategically to a position that we are capable of defending. The cultural battlefield has changed far more than many of us realize.

I live in a small town in rural south Louisiana. Most people go to church, and most people vote Republican; the conservatism is so gentle that even liberals feel at home. The parish council—that is to say, the county government—begins each meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Our Father.

My town is the kind of place that conservatives, especially religious conservatives, think of as a haven from secular liberalism, the kind of place where, if Cardinal George’s persecution prophecy ever came true, Christians could take their stand. But here’s the thing: Culturally speaking, its conservatism is pretty much hollow. That fact has profound implications for the future of the Christian civic project.

Not long ago, a Protestant man in my town who is involved in youth education at his church contacted me. He wanted to discuss what I have written about “moralistic therapeutic deism” (MTD). Sociologist Christian Smith, who coined the term, said it is the “de facto dominant religion among contemporary teenagers in the United States.” It is a vague, vapid approach to religion, one that can be summed up as: God exists, and he wants us to be nice to each other, and to be happy and successful.

My Protestant correspondent said that MTD is the religion of the kids in his church, and it grieved him because as far as he could tell, this was the religion that their parents wanted them to have. This wasn’t surprising to me. We are living in a post-Christian culture, and MTD is our new civil religion.

In conversation with Methodists and Episcopalians in my town, I’ve discovered that, to the extent that believers are aware at all of the great theological battles for the souls of their churches, they consider them little more than rumors of war. This insularity can be a blessing; it is wonderful to go to church on Sunday and not find oneself on a culture-war battlefield.

But I think this disengagement is more of a curse. You may not be interested in the culture war, but the culture war is definitely interested in you. Christian Smith’s research leads us to the indisputable conclusion that for at least two generations, American Christianity has mounted no sustained, substantive challenge to the ongoing cultural revolution now blessed by MTD.

True, the more vigorous, engaged sectors of American Christianity—Evangelicals and orthodox Roman Catholics—produced more Republican voters, at least for a while, but that’s not the same thing as standing athwart the cultural revolution yelling, “Stop!” In fact, insofar as those Christian voters allowed Republican ideas about freedom and the primacy of the individual to dominate their thinking about the relationship of Christ to culture, they have been part of the problem.

Smith’s research reveals that our Christian institutions—churches, schools, colleges—have collaborated in the death of Christian culture in our country. I do not accept the easy blame-shifting to institutions alone, though. Too many Christian clerics and educators, within churches as well as church institutions, have told me how much resistance they get from parents when they try to teach a more vigorous, theologically substantive form of the faith.

If by “Christianity” we mean the philosophical and cultural framework setting the broad terms for engagement in American public life, Christianity is dead, and we Christians have killed it. We have allowed our children to be catechized by the culture and have produced an anesthetizing religion suited for little more than being a chaplaincy to the liberal individualistic order.

As Michael Hanby recognizes, gay marriage has been a watershed in this regard, revealing how far we have fallen from any kind of recognizable Christian orthodoxy about what it means to be a person. The South, unsurprisingly, is the only region where fewer than 50 percent of all those polled endorse same-sex marriage. This is not going to hold. Earlier this year, a Gallup poll revealed that 80 percent of young Americans believe in same-sex marriage. Polling within Louis­iana, one of the most socially conservative and religiously observant states, where a solid but shrinking majority opposes gay marriage, found that half of voters thirty and under favor gay marriage.

That polling doesn’t reveal the intensity of feeling on the subject among the young. Last year, a Louis­iana clergyman I know was invited to give a presentation on religion at a private school. The only guideline the teacher who invited him gave was don’t talk about gay marriage. It wasn’t that the teacher backed gay marriage; he adamantly does not. Rather, he told the pastor, “If these kids find out that you are against gay marriage, they won’t listen to a thing you have to say about anything.”

This was not in a big-city elite private academy. This was in a small school in churchgoing rural Louisiana—a school founded, in fact, as a haven for white students whose parents rejected racial integration. This school still has no blacks, a fact that doesn’t seem to bother its students. Gay rights is the third rail for these country kids, just as it increasingly is for Catholic high-schoolers around the nation.

The point is not that these putatively Christian young people disagree with Christian orthodoxy on homosexuality. The point is that despite the radicalism of gay liberation, especially within the Christian community, they don’t even see this as a legitimate debate.

And why should they? According to the tenets of moralistic therapeutic deism, which emphasizes personal happiness and well-being, there is no reason why Christianity should object to same-sex marriage. The summum bonum of our American civil religion is maximizing the opportunities for ­individuals to express and satisfy their desires—a belief that orthodox Christianity by nature opposes but that Christian moralistic therapeutic deism embraces and baptizes. As Smith told an audience at Princeton Theological Seminary,it is not so much that Christianity in the United States is being secularized. Rather more subtly, either Christianity is at least degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith.

Some of us will live to see the day when orthodox Christians will be considered exotic antiques at best—I think of the benign indifference with which many Europeans regard Christianity today—and threats to decency at worst, potentially harmful individuals who must be driven out of public life. In either case, Hanby is correct: The civic project of American Christianity has come to an end, for how can we produce Christian civic life when we are not producing authentic Christians?

This is not to endorse quietism. I don’t think we can afford to be disengaged from public and political life. But it is to advocate for a realistic understanding of where we stand as Christians in twenty-first-­century America. Our prospects for living and acting in the public square as Christians are now quite limited.

Put bluntly, given the dynamics of our rapidly changing culture, I believe it will be increasingly difficult to be a good Christian and a good American. It is far more important to me to preserve the faith than to preserve liberal democracy and the American order. Ideally, there should not be a contradiction, but again, the realities of post-Christian America challenge our outdated ideals.

In our time, the Benedict Option does not offer a formula (at least not yet), but it does call for a radical shift in perspective among Christians, one in which we see ourselves as living in the ruins (though very comfortable ones!) of Christian civilization, and tasked with preserving the living faith through the coming Dark Ages.

In some instances, Benedict-Option Christians may seek to found new neighborhoods centered on communal worship. I think of the traditionalist Catholic community around Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma, or of the Orthodox community around St. John Cathedral in Eagle River, Alaska. Contrary to the claims of Benedict-Option critics, neither community is utopian and separatist, shunning the outside world.

For most of us, though, that degree of commitment isn’t possible, even if it were desirable. Our Benedict Option will express itself within institutions—churches, schools, para-church organizations, and so forth—whose purpose is to keep orthodox Christianity alive in the hearts and minds of believers living as exiles in an ever more hostile culture. These must be institutions that fulfill Flannery O’Connor’s dictum that you have to push back as hard against the world as the world pushes against you.

St. Jerome’s, the school that Michael Hanby and others revitalized in their suburban Maryland parish, is a great example of the Benedict Option. Its founders (or rather, re-founders) are orthodox Catholics who believe that Catholic education has to be more than a public-school curriculum with religion classes tacked on. They are teaching the great tradition of Christian humanism.

We need to teach ourselves and our children to desire Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, as preserved within our traditions, and to make that pursuit the focus of our moral imagination. This is not a lofty ideal, but a matter of intense practical urgency. We do not have time to waste in building our little platoons.

Here’s what I mean: People have been moving out of the cities to my town for the past twenty years because the public-school system is one of the best in the state. Yet a family I know here pulled their children out of the school and began homeschooling not because the school is educationally deficient but because the friends of their oldest son, then a fifth-grader, were giving themselves over to watching hardcore pornography on their mobile devices. This wasn’t the school’s fault—the kids weren’t doing it during school hours—but it was the fault of a community of parents that, willingly or not, does not read the signs of the times. Like Philip Larkin’s diseased and dying rabbit in “Myxomatosis,” perhaps they think things will come right again if they can only keep still and wait.

There are no safe places to raise Christian kids in America other than the countercultural places we make for ourselves, together. If we do not form our consciences and the consciences of our children to be distinctly Christian and distinctly countercultural, even if that means some degree of intentional separation from the mainstream, we are not going to survive.

Christianity in America still lives in places and among people who have not yet sold out to moralistic therapeutic deism. Those Christians who have a vocation to politics should exercise it, and they need our support. But Christians who believe that politics will save us should discard those illusions now. The primary focus of orthodox Christians in America should be cultural—or rather, countercultural—building the institutions and habits that will carry the faith and the faithful forward through the next Dark Age.